errar

Forms

errar (first-person singular present (Spain) yerro or (Latin America) erro, first-person singular preterite erré, past participle errado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin errō (“to wander, stray; to be mistaken”).^[2][3][4][1] In the present tense the stressed /e/ became /ie/, written ⟨ye⟩ at the start of the word: ⟨yerro⟩, ⟨yerra⟩, ⟨yerren⟩.^[5][6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese errar, Galician errar, Catalan errar, Occitan errar, French errer and Italian errare.^[7][8][1] From it Spanish also formed the noun yerro “error”, recorded from 1220–1250.^[3][2]

The Latin verb is a denominative; de Vaan reconstructs a noun Proto-Indo-European *h₁ers-o/h₂- (“erring, error”) and compares irren (“to be mistaken”) and the Gothic verb for “to lead astray”.^[9][10] He links it with the root *h₁ers- (“to flow”), through a sense “uncontrolled flowing to and fro”;^[9][1] Nussbaum instead connects the root *h₁er- (“to arrive”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950, have the forms gerrare and ierras.^[2][11] The Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) has the participle erados, and in Berceo the verb and its participle refer to people who have gone astray, in faith as on the road.^[11][12][13]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the verb with a personal object in the senses “to deceive” (Libro de Alexandre) and “to wrong, offend” (Juan Manuel, the Rimado de Palacio); the Academy kept “to offend, wrong” and “to fail in one's duty” until the 19th century, marked as old.^[2][14] Alfonso X's prose already has the senses “to be mistaken”, “to fail in what is owed” and “to wander about”.^[15] The participle errado meant “sinner” from Berceo on, as in the confession formula yo pecador mucho errado that Covarrubias quotes.^[2][16]

The Academy's dictionaries recorded the proverbs al que yerra, perdónale una vez, mas no después and después que te erré, nunca bien te quise, and in 1884 added the reflexive errarse “to be mistaken”.^[14][17]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses have gerrare and ierras.^[2][11]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos has erados.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – the noun yerro and the learned error are first recorded.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses yerran for “are mistaken”.^[15]
• 1493 – first record from the Americas.^[18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives errar, andar perdido for Latin erro.^[19]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes the y of yo yerro as an irregularity.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the Latin etymology and the reflexive errarse.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To miss, to fail to hit or get right; also intransitive, to err, be mistaken: El delantero erró el penalti.^[4][1]
2. (dated) To fail someone, not to do what is owed to them.^[4]
3. (intransitive) To wander, roam from place to place: Los peregrinos erraron varios días por el desierto.^[4][1]
4. (intransitive) Of thought, imagination or attention: to wander, drift (divagar).^[4]
5. To sin; to do wrong to someone.^[6]

Word family

• errado
• errante
• yerro
• erradizo
• errancia

Related words

• aberrar
• erróneo
• error
• errata
• errático
• Latin errō

Usage notes

Errar takes y- in the stressed forms of the present: yerro, yerras, yerra, yerran;^[6][5] yerre;^[6][5] yerra tú.^[6][5] Wiktionary gives erro as the Latin American first person; in Buenos Aires Garzón called these forms a spreading vice.^[1][20] The verb is not to be confused with herrar “to shoe a horse”, which has hierro, hierra.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 659
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. errar
4. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. errar
5. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 545
6. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. errar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2904
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2460
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. errar
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. errar
13. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 339
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 375
15. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. errar
16. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 758
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 444
18. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. errar
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 348
20. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 191
21. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 274